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Forum:Stub articles
Some of visitors and editors mentioned me several times that I am creating much new stub articles. Since FV release a lot of new stuffs everyday it's hard to add all of them in descent time and finding enough data about something is hard. What exactly article should have to stop to be stub? Is source and some mastery data enough or not? Since I usually enter quest rewards, mystery game items, different escapade and voting building features, countdowns, I think that adding only source is not enough to article stop to be stub. Since decoration article have least fields then animals, trees and seeds I do not add stub on them. For animals, trees and seeds there is grow time, harvest, cost and mastery values, storage buildings for animals or tree level on trees so I add stub on that articles. Since most of this feature do not add items in market where you can find more info they will stay stub. Nice exception from this rule is countdown items. Few days or weeks after some countdown end they release all items in market with new cash price and you can find also XP, sell coin and mastery values. So when they release it I try to add it and then I remove stub template. I know that stub article is bad and that I should try to search for more data but I just do not have time. I am trying to add at least source and maybe storage building and mastery. Since there is still a lot of doghouse and last voting building items without page I am asking you for opinion- is page with source still stub or not? I am not a fan of creating pages without source that only have picture or market info with only text from preload. Greenny |Talk 15:51, October 12, 2012 (UTC) STUB ARTICLES ARE NOT INHERENTLY BAD! (Sorry for shouting.) Stub articles are only the start of an article, but information can almost always be added later (unless the wiki editing software breaks). Any accurate information is better than no information. The stub template just lets people know that information needs to be added. In my opinion, a well written article includes a complete description of the item or activity. It is basically your journalistic, "Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How?" A minimum example: # what it is, what it is for, and what it does # what it looks like (a picture is worth more than 1000 words) ## how big it is # the date(s) that it is available # how to make it, or how to get it ## how much it costs (cash, coconuts, coins, jade coins, special item, etc) ## how long it takes, or how many of what object it requires, to complete itself # if and what it can be placed inside for harvesting # whether or not it produces anything ## if it produces something else, a link or summary of the other thing # how much it can be harvested/sold for # navigation to other items or activities that may be of interest As you can see, this can be a fairly long list! Zynga does not deliver any of this information in batch files for easy updating. Instead, editors (like those on this wiki) have to get it from the market, wall posts, Zynga announcements, etc. This makes it very difficult to find the information sometimes. For example, the second mastery star for a time-limited crop is nearly impossible to determine if you are in a hurry to complete a quest and harvest a fully expanded farm using Turbo. Or, if you get it as a gift from a neighbor. Zynga has probably been releasing items and activities at 5 times (or more) the rate they did when the game first started. When FarmVille was started, generally we only had to worry about new things 2 or 3 times a month, and there was usually at least 2 weeks between new releases: * events were small and only once or sometimes twice a month * there was frequently longer than 2 weeks between new mystery boxes * quests were rare, and usually lasted a month * new buildings (non-decorative) were rare We now usually have a weekly release schedule: * a minimum of 3 quests each week * multiple request activities (e.g. 12 days of X) per month * several carnival games (Mystery Dart, Raffle, a week * multiple events per month * frequent new crafting buildings and/or recipes * etc. This isn't a bad thing for the game, but it means sometimes an article may take a long time to complete. It is better to mark it a stub (so that others know more information is needed), than to not create an article with the little information you have. I know that I frequently make stubs because I take the animal information from the animal's storage pen (where there is no information for size, harvesting, mastery, buy, or sell). If an article already exists for the animal, I add that information. If it doesn't... I create a new article, and mark it as a stub. Either someone else will enter the other information, or I will come back to it later. Usually, after I have finished entering the storage pen information on the other animal's pages (it may be more than 50 pages later!). Only Wikia Staff members get paid to write, and they're usually too busy to do very much editing of general articles or templates on this wiki. It may help if you think of this wiki as volunteers manufacturing articles. It's up to you whether you want to use the assembly line method, or the craftsman method. You have to ask yourself which is better for you: for you to complete 2 or 3 complete articles and no stubs, or 20 or 30 stub articles, and few or no complete articles. Different editors take more or less time to complete an article. Other editors also have the different editing preferences. If people are complaining about stub articles, remind them that they are easily able to create and/or edit the articles themselves. Most of the time, they don't even need to have an account to edit or create articles so that the article is not a stub. If they aren't sure how to do something, they can start by reading , or ask for help (here, chat, message walls, talk pages, etc). Unless people are taking an active role in adding information to the articles on this wiki, they are complaining about themselves. Vandraedha (talk · ) 19:13, October 12, 2012 (UTC)